Adam Mrozowicki's chapter, “Sociology of Work in Poland”

Mrozowicki, Adam. 2019. “Sociology of Work in Poland.” Pp. 253-85 in The Palgrave Handbook of the Sociology of Work in Europe, edited by Paul Stewart, Jean-Pierre Durand and Maria-Magdalena Richea. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jörg Nowak "Brazil: Fascism on the verge of power?"

Brazil: Fascism on the Verge of Power?

Jörg Nowak

Dec 17, 2018 

https://socialistproject.ca/2018/12/brazil-fascism-on-the-verge-of-power/

Socialist Project (SP)

The Bullet

Jörg Nowak is a political scientist at the University of Nottingham (UK) and co-editor of the magazine Rupture. His latest publications are “The Spectre of Social Democracy” in the Global Labour Journal, issue 3/2018, and the edited collection Workers Movements and Strikes in the Twenty-First Century. A Global Perspective. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018, co-edited with Peter Birke and Madhumita Dutta.

Aleksandra Ålund and Carl-Ulrik Schierup "Making or unmaking a movement?"

Ålund, Aleksandra and Carl-Ulrik Schierup. 2018. “Making or unmaking a movement? Challenges for civic activism in the global governance of migration.” Globalizations 15(6): 809-823.

Schierup and coauthors "Migration, civil society and global governance"

Schierup, Carl-Ulrik, Branka Likić-Brborić, Raúl Delgado Wise and Gülay Toksöz. 2018. “Migration, civil society and global governance: an introduction to the special issue.” Globalizations 15(6): 733-45.

Marcel Paret “Critical Nostalgias in Democratic South Africa"

Paret, Marcel. 2018. “Critical Nostalgias in Democratic South Africa.” The Sociological Quarterly 59(4): 678-696.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00380253.2018.1506689?journalCode=utsq20

Evidence suggests that some black residents in South Africa experience nostalgia for the racist and authoritarian apartheid regime. What dynamics generate apartheid nostalgia, and what work does it do? This article draws on in-depth interviews with black residents of impoverished urban townships and informal settlements. I argue that by eliminating formal racial discrimination and redirecting popular aspirations towards the state, South Africa’s democratic transition encouraged apartheid nostalgia, which residents deployed to criticize the post-apartheid state and imagine alternative possibilities. Far from uniform, nostalgic expressions focused on four objects: social protection, migrant exclusion, bureaucratic integrity, and white governance. Each object represented an aspect of the apartheid state that residents sought to resurrect. The analysis calls for a shift from a politics of regret, focused on shame for past atrocities, to a politics of nostalgia, which understands idealized projections of past objects as a terrain of struggle.

Marcel Paret “Migration Politics”

Paret, Marcel. 2018. “Migration Politics: Mobilizing Against Economic Insecurity in the United States and South Africa.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 59(1): 3-24.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0020715217739447?journalCode=cosa

From the mid-2000s, the United States and South Africa, respectively, experienced significant pro-migrant and anti-migrant mobilizations. Economically insecure groups played leading roles. Why did these groups emphasize politics of migration, and to what extent did the very different mobilizations reflect parallel underlying mechanisms? Drawing on 41 months of ethnographic fieldwork and 119 interviews with activists and residents, I argue that the mobilizations deployed two common strategies: symbolic group formation rooted in demands for recognition, and targeting the state as a key source of livelihood. These twin strategies encouraged economically insecure groups to emphasize national identities and, in turn, migration. Yet, they manifested in different types of mobilization due to the varying characteristics of the groups involved, and the different national imaginaries and organizing legacies they had to draw upon. The analysis demonstrates the capacity of economically insecure groups to make collective claims. It also shows that within the context of anti-migrant nationalism, economic insecurity amplifies the significance of national belonging, citizenship, and migration as important terrains of collective struggle. 

Marcel Paret “The Politics of Local Resistance in Urban South Africa”

Paret, Marcel. 2018. “The Politics of Local Resistance in Urban South Africa: Evidence from Three Informal Settlements.” International Sociology 33(3): 337-356.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0268580918764837?journalCode=issa

Between 2009 and 2014, South Africa experienced widespread protests. In contrast to prominent examples of global protest during the same period, they were localized and did not push for broad political and economic transformation. To explain these features, this article draws from three ethnographic and interview-based case studies of local protest and organizing within informal settlements in and around Johannesburg. The author argues that urban poverty and the experience of market insecurity, on the one hand, and democratization and the experience of state betrayal, on the other hand, gave rise to specific political orientations. Residents responded to market insecurity by demanding collective consumption for place-based communities, and they responded to state betrayal by demanding fulfillment of a national liberation social contract through administrative fixes. Both strategies confined activism to the local level and limited broader challenges. The findings have implications for research on both the urban poor and social movements.

Marcel Paret “Citizenship and Work in Global Capitalism”

Paret, Marcel. 2018. “Citizenship and Work in Global Capitalism: From Domination to Aspiration.” Sociology Compass 12(8): 1-13.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/soc4.12602

The sociology of citizenship emerged during an exceptional period in which workers benefitted from economic growth and gains in productivity. Yet the field grew against the backdrop of a market‐oriented global capitalism defined by high levels of precarious work, surplus labor, and economic insecurity. Tracing the evolution of global capitalism in the wake of World War II, and across the unequal regions of the world, I outline three different perspectives on the relationship between capitalism and work. These include an outdated and untenable perspective of citizenship as workplace product, a critical perspective of citizenship as worker domination, and an optimistic perspective of citizenship as aspiration and agency. The analysis suggests that citizenship represents an important terrain of struggle within global capitalism, simultaneously enabling patterns of domination and inspiring movements for liberation. 

Suzanne Mills' The geography of skill

Suzanne Mills, 2018, “The Geography of Skill: Mobility and Exclusionary Unionism in Canada’s North,” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 0(0) 1–19

Jenny Chan writes a chapter in The SAGE Handbook of Contemporary China (edited by Weiping Wu and Mark Frazier, 2018)

Jenny Chan, 2018, “Economic Growth and Labor Security,” Pp. 166-88 in The SAGE Handbook of Contemporary China, 2 Volume Set, edited by Weiping Wu and Mark Frazier, London: SAGE.

Jenny Chan contributes to HKFP on Shenzhen Jasic Technology

Jenny Chan, 2018, “Shenzhen Jasic Technology: the birth of a worker-student coalition in China?” Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP), 1 September.

Kim Scipes publishes an article in Journal of Labor and Society

Kim Scipes, 2018, “Another type of trade unionism IS possible: The KMU Labor Center of the Philippines and social movement unionism,” Journal of Labor and Society 21: 349-67.

Aziz Choudry and Salim Vally (co-edited Education As Change)

Education As Change, 22(2), 2018

Editorial: “Learning from, in, and with independent community and activist archives: The past in our present and future”   

Co-edited by Aziz Choudry (Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University) and Salim Vally (Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg)

Articles:

9 articles (on South Africa, Canada, Fiji, India, and Kuwait)

By Benita Bunjun, Koni Benson, Mudney Halim, Mondi Hlatshwayo, Susan Kennedy Nour al Deen, Nisha Thapliyal, Daryl Braam, Tui Nicola Clery and Robin Metcalfe, Heidi Grunebaum

Andrew Waterman on the TUC Strategies to Influence the Multi-Fibre Arrangement and the GATT Social Clause, 1973–1994

Waterman, Andrew (2018)  The Limits of Embedded Liberalism: TUC Strategies to Influence the Multi-Fibre Arrangement and the GATT Social Clause, 1973–1994, Labour History Review 83(2).

S. Zajak, N. Egels‐Zandén and N.Piper on Networks of Labour Activism

Zajak, Sabrina, Egels‐Zandén,  Niklas, Piper, Nicola (2017) Networks of Labour Activism: Collective Action across Asia and Beyond. An Introduction to the Debate. Development and Change 48(5): 899-921.

A commentary on the paper about the East-West divide in the ETUC by A. Mrozowicki and J. Czarzasty

Mrozowicki, A., Czarzasty, J. (2018) "Is a new paradigm needed? A commentary on the analysis by Sławomir Adamczyk", European Journal of Industrial Relations, published online before print on 2 March 2018, https://doi.org/10.1177/0959680118760631

Jenny Chan on Class Inequalities and Social Struggles in China

Chan, Jenny. (2018). Class Inequalities and Social Struggles in China, Global Dialogue. Magazine of the International Sociological Association, Vol. 8(1), available at: http://globaldialogue.isa-sociology.org/class-inequalities-and-social-struggles-in-china/

Marcel Paret on Working-Class Fragmentation and Solidarity in South Africa's United Front

Paret, Marcel (2017) "Working-class fragmentation, party politics, and the complexities of solidarity in South Africa’s United Front", The Sociological Review 65(2): 267-284.